When children are rude, or engage in power struggles over who is in charge, how do you respond? Many of us just want to draw a hard line about behaviors we don’t like. “Do it because I said so!” is a default reply many of us learned from our parents. What are the alternatives? In Episode #7 of Raising Humans, we hear from one parent who gets into power struggles with her child regularly to the point where she’s feeling like the victim of his rudeness. Find out how parents might access the wisdom of emotional intelligence in moments like these.

At young ages children can begin to develop a sense of efficacy and agency and learn to recognize feelings, actions and thoughts and how they are related.

And by developing our own tools to navigate emotions and apply consequential thinking, we can provide them with ways to deal with conflicts and make good decisions based on values.

We hope you find this podcast thought provoking. Please send us your own stories, thoughts and suggestions for future show topics.

Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and communications professional, editor, producer, and writer for effective outcomes. Ms. Goodman has been a radio producer for much of her career, specializing in short features and documentaries. Some of her work includes Southern Songbirds: the Women of Early Country Music, Pastures of Plenty: A History of California's Farmworkers, and The Boomtown Chronicles: Reflections on a Changing California. Ms. Goodman teaches journalism at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz County. Her goals are to facilitate positive change in the world through effective communication, and to continue conducting her work with the highest level of integrity possible.

1 Comment

Thanks a bunch. I’ve seen so many examples of 3 or 5-year olds running the household, by their rudeness, obstinacy, or threat of tantrum. Terrorists indeed! And May, you are so right to talk about their inability to control themselves cognitively, so why let them control others?

I enjoyed hearing about the use of humor and calm to meet these episodes. How many children subconsciously long to know there is an adult in charge, that there are limits and expectations? While we are respecting them and their growing-up needs, we have to remember that modeling maturity is one of the most important ways we can imprint essential life lessons in their consciousness.

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